Top 41 Quotes by Laurence Sterne

The desire of knowledge, like the thirst of riches, increases ever with the acquisition of it.

One may as well be asleep as to read for anything but to improve his mind and morals, and regulate his conduct.

I once asked a hermit in Italy how he could venture to live alone, in a single cottage, on the top of a mountain, a mile from any habitation? He replied, that Providence was his next-door neighbor.

Only the brave know how to forgive; it is the most refined and generous pitch of virtue human nature can arrive at.

Pain and pleasure, like light and darkness, succeed each other.

The most accomplished way of using books is to serve them as some people do lords; learn their titles and then brag of their acquaintance.

Titles of honor are like the impressions on coins, which add no value to gold or silver, but only render brass current.

Alas! if the principles of contentment are not within us, the height of station and worldly grandeur will as soon add a cubit to a man's stature as to his happiness.

God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.

Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world, - though the cant of hypocrites may be the worst, - the cant of criticism is the most tormenting!